ALEXA HURRIED AFTER MILO, who’d forged a little ahead of the others with his long angel strides. She could hear Rachel’s laughter as she ran across the street, and her scowl deepened. Buckets of heat rose from her neck and face.
With her fists clenched, Alexa met up with Milo and followed the warrior angel up the stone path to the double front doors. The stone arch above the doors was marred with light gray markings, graffiti that had been scrubbed but had never come off completely.
When they got to the door, Erik brushed past them. He pulled out two small metal picks from inside his jacket and, when he caught Milo staring, said, “Lock picks, to open the door—”
“You won’t need them,” said Matt, who pushed open the door and was now standing in the threshold. “It’s open. See?”
Milo dashed past Matt and disappeared through the doorway into the darkness beyond with Alexa right behind him.
They stood in a long, dimly lit hallway with doors flanking each side and corridors branching out in intervals. Soft night lighting glimmered overhead, casting a flickering insubstantial glow over the polished floors. Portraits of the school’s football and baseball team champions hung on the walls.
Alexa heard a soft hissing noise and then old-fashioned water heaters spat to life all along the corridors.
Even before she scanned with her angel senses, she felt the familiar, cold, empty feeling of death. The rancid scent of darkness and death was everywhere—in the air, on her skin and seeping into her clothes. She even tasted it on her tongue.
Yet even among the rancid scent of darkness, Alexa felt something else, like a sudden shift in the Veil, something that had latched itself on to the darkness like a parasite. Something different. Something new.
Milo looked at her and then drew his spirit sabers from their sheaths. The silver blades glimmered in the semi-darkness like blazing stars.
“Shouldn’t there be an alarm or something,” said Rachel, stepping into the hallway.
“It’s clear whoever took care of the door also took care of the alarm,” said Erik as he pocketed his instruments.
Rachel looked around with a rather bored expression. “Are we going to stand here in this hallway all night, or are we going to go looking for your friends? It’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”
Alexa pulled out her soul blade, a slight shake to her hand. “I have an idea,” she smiled. “How about you stay here by yourself, and the rest of us go looking for our friends?”
Rachel looked alarmed, and for a moment Alexa half expected the mortal girl to lash out at her again with the usual dead-girl insults, but instead Rachel reached inside her coat and drew a blade of her own.
Matt followed her example and pulled out a large, steel-gray blade that looked more like a machete to Alexa than the usual operative short sword or dagger.
Alexa felt Erik’s eyes on her, but she kept her gaze on the dark corridor. Her skin tingled with the presence of darkness. Evil leaked from somewhere inside this school.
“Come,” said Milo as he strode down the corridor with soundless grace. “I believe it smells more fowl down this way.”
Without another word, Alexa followed Milo, her head swimming with different scenarios of how to slap Rachel and her shoulders stiff with rage. She didn’t even look back to see if the others were following. At this point, she didn’t care if they came or not. But as she dashed across the polished floors, a loud tread of multiple boots sounded behind her.
Together, the five of them sprinted off down the hall with Milo in the lead, past a large glass case stuffed with trophies, picture frames, and an assortment of gold and silver medals hanging by red and blue ribbons and a toy pig dressed in overalls.
As they sped down the hallway, Alexa felt the familiar pulse of darkness intensify along with a weight in her throat of absolute dread and terrible foreboding.
Could Hades be lurking in the shadows? Was he waiting for her?
The hallway ended suddenly and branched out into two corridors, both leading into another long and gloomy hallway. Milo froze and raised one of his swords, motioning them to stop.
Everyone halted, and nothing moved but Erik’s, Rachel’s, and Matt’s heaving chests.
“What is it?” whispered Alexa, knowing that Milo’s keen angel senses far outmatched her own. When she gazed down the hallway, all she saw were more doors, corridors, and the same white painted walls. “Is it the angels? Can you sense them?” she said, glancing up and down the corridors.
Alexa turned her head around, trying to feel something, but the darkness pressed on her angel senses like a weightless blanket.
“I felt a shift in the Veil, like a ripple of light,” said Milo as he closed his eyes for a moment, a frown on his face like he was struggling to recall a memory. He opened his eyes. “I lost it. It was faint, but there’s definitely an angel presence here. I felt it.”
Erik snorted behind her and Alexa shot him a glare. She turned back to Milo. “Which way do we go?”
Milo stood still for a moment, and then he pointed with the tip of his sword down another corridor to his left. “That way,” he said and sprinted down the hallway.
Alexa and the others hurried down the hallway after him. Where her boots clacked loudly against the hard floor, Milo’s silent thief-like stealth made him look as though he was gliding a few inches off the floor, the heels of his boots never really touching.
Alexa’s nerves jolted in her frantically now that she knew they were on the right track. Milo led the way down the narrow space. Doors flew by on either side in blurs of grays and whites as Alexa galloped behind the angel.
They passed so many doors that Alexa lost count. She was listening hard for the slightest sound of movement. The school was enormous with ample spots for demons to hide, waiting for the perfect opportunity to ambush them.
What had happened to the angels? Was Hades responsible? Alexa couldn’t help but wonder if they’d been ambushed on a fool’s mission, just like this one.
Milo continued to lead the way through the darkness. A door was open, and he motioned to the open door ahead and made his way silently inside, Alexa right behind him.
She moved into the doorway. The room was short and narrow, with a low roof and small windows. Desks and chairs were tipped over, splintered with legs shattered as though they’d been thrown against the wall by something large and very strong. Maroon stains smeared the walls and the floor. When Alexa moved closer, she saw the figure of a woman lying motionless on the ground, her head twisted at an awkward angle. Milo bent down and put his hands on the body, his face grim.
When he looked up at her, he shook his head gently and then stormed out the room.
“Milo! Wait!”
Alexa bolted after him, but not before she caught the expressions of anger and sadness on Erik’s face as he and the others huddled around the dead body.
Alexa rushed back into the hallway and around the corner where she’d seen Milo disappear—and halted.
Bodies littered the corridor. Cautiously, her right hand almost glued to the hilt of her soul blade, she stepped around the first of the splayed-out bodies on the ground. There were eight of them, spread out along the hall’s length. It was clear to Alexa what had killed them. They had been hacked apart, their limbs torn from their bodies. As Alexa edged closer, she saw that they had also been beheaded. But worse, she knew whatever demon had killed them had also taken their souls.
Alexa kept moving. There was a crumpled body in the corridor beyond, a man with a gaping hole in his chest. They kept moving and Alexa saw another man lying on the floor. His face had been ripped to ribbons, the white of his skull peering through the torn flesh.
“Did your angels do this?” Erik’s face darkened and he looked like he was about to be sick. “They murdered these people. Didn’t they?”
“What?” Alexa whirled on him, keeping her voice low despite her anger. “No. Of course not. Angels don’t kill innocent mortals. They protect them. How can you even say that?”
“Really?” Erik’s voice wavered angrily. “It wasn’t that long ago when angels came into our home and killed defenseless children.”
Alexa sighed. “I know what you’re going to say, but that was different—”
“Not it’s not,” Rachel seethed, her eyes welled with tears. “Angels tried to kill me, but somehow I survived. But only because I had someone watching over me…” her eyes flicked to Erik. “These people never stood a chance. They had no training, no warning, and no idea how to deal with these creatures—”
“Angels didn’t do this,” repeated Alexa, seeing the revulsion that mirrored on Matt’s face.
“How can you be so sure?” demanded Erik. “They’ve done it before. Why is this any different?”
“What happened at Hallow Hall was an isolated case.” Milo turned around and faced Erik. “The circumstances were very different. These deaths aren’t related.”
Erik shook his head. “Pfff—how the hell do you know? You can’t even tell if your buddies are here or not. You can’t tell me angels didn’t do this.”
“They didn’t.” Alexa moved around the body. “Demons did this.” The words felt heavy on her tongue, as though she were trying to convince herself. “I can still smell the stench of demon, like curdled milk and vinegar and rotten flesh.” The smell hit her hard. “Trust me, this is demons’ work. Angels didn’t kill these people.”
For a moment, no one said anything. Erik moved away, and the others followed his example, taking his sudden stop of argument as a sign he’d finally accepted Alexa’s version of events.
They crept forward, glancing behind them as
they went on down the long corridor. The farthest ends were in
near-total darkness. Occasionally, Alexa heard Erik and the others
whispering behind her, catching the usual “they’re all liars” and
then the reoccurring
“murderers.”
Lying to Erik about the dead mortal was… awful. The truth was, she couldn’t be entirely sure it wasn’t angels. But Milo had stepped in and confirmed the suspicious deaths were the work of demons. She hoped he was right.
Still, guilt weighed heavily on Alexa. She wore it now like a cloak made of steel. It pushed down on her shoulders, strained into her legs, and made every step painful.
Suddenly, Milo halted, his head bent listening.
The others stopped and Alexa edged forward to peer down one of the shadowy aisles. She couldn’t hear anything or see the slightest sign of movement, but she felt the darkness, like a suffocating smoke.
“Demons,” whispered Alexa over Milo’s shoulder. “Lots of them.”
“Yes, lots of them,” breathed Milo. He had a strange smile on his face as he looked toward the end of the hallway.
And then he shot forward again, like a hound following a scent. Alexa bolted down the hallway and made it just in time to see Milo kick open a classroom door and disappear inside.
Alexa hurled herself in after him, her blade brandished before her.
As her eyes became accustomed to the darkness of the room, she saw desks and empty chairs covering every surface of the classroom with maps and posters hanging in spaces between the bookcases that ran the length of the room.
But no one was there. No demons. No angels. All was echoing, dusty silence.
Alexa looked at Milo, and the confusion on his face mirrored her own. His eyes rested on her for a moment, his lips a thin line. His face went very still, and in that moment he looked suddenly much older.
She turned at the sound of people approaching, and Erik toppled into the room, closely followed by Matt and Rachel.
Nobody spoke. Alexa didn’t want to look at any of them. She felt embarrassed, and she didn’t understand why the room was empty. She’d been so sure she’d felt the presence of demons…
“Is this a joke? There’s no one in here?” Erik stepped around the desks. After a moment, he turned to Rachel and Matt. “Come on, let’s get out of here—”
A high, yowling cry sounded from somewhere outside the classroom—loud and terrified, a young person being hurt. Just then a they heard a crash as something heavy went through a window.
Alexa felt the hairs on her neck stand up like wires. “That’s not a demon’s cry. That’s a girl’s!” Without waiting for a reply, Alexa bolted out the door and bounded down the corridor towards the sound.
Her limbs powered by her M-9 suit, the balls of her feet barely touched the ground as she sprinted on the polished floors with doors and walls passing in a blur.
She had failed to save the mortals in that nightclub, but she would save this girl. She had to.
Behind her, closer now, were rushing footsteps and shouts. The thick demon stench was like running through a wall of smoke, pushing her back and trying to keep her away.
Alexa veered right towards another long hallway and dashed along the corridor to where light poured through a door. While she recognized the cold and putrid presence of a demon, she sensed something else, too. Life.
With a final leap, she found herself in a large, gymnasium-like room. Unlike the rest of the school, it was lit by rows of ceiling lights high above, as bright as day. Seats, stacked in ten-foot high towering pillars, lined the sides of the large room.
A girl lay in the middle of the gymnasium’s floor. She was curled up in a fetal position with her face hidden in her hands. She was shaking.
Alexa didn’t notice the shadowy figures that pushed off from the walls and shuffled towards her. Her eyes never left the trembling girl.
Alexa could make out long black hair and delicate outstretched hands covered in blood as well as skin spotted with ugly bruises.
As she approached the girl, she could see another large bruise on her cheek and the paleness of her face. Yet she could see the darting movement under her eyelids.
Relief washed through her like a hot wave, undoing the tight cords of tension that had held her together this long.
“It’s all right,” said Alexa. “You’re going to be okay.” She kneeled, setting her blade aside, and gently turned her over.
Large black eyes stared up at her.
And then the girl sat up and smiled, her pointed teeth smeared in blood. “Hello, angel.”